


ghosts and other vices

by theArchduchess



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, Depression, Georgiou is a mess, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Nightmares, but we knew that already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theArchduchess/pseuds/theArchduchess
Summary: The dethroned emperor Georgiou struggles to adjust to life in the prime universe as she is haunted by the memories of the two people she used to trust, the two people who betrayed her and marked the end of her reign.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	ghosts and other vices

Adjusting to having been ripped from her universe had been … difficult. She had resented Michael at first. After all the pain she had gone through and the undeniable fact that the emperor had fallen, that the angry mob wouldn’t stop until they had cut her head off she had made her peace with this end to her story. But Michael had not. The woman had refused to watch another Philippa Georgiou die. In any other moment Georgiou might have appreciated it or even been thankful for Michael’s dedication to saving her life but with everything that had happened, with her daughter’s betrayal and death still so fresh she had reacted frustrated instead, hateful, dismissive. She had even tried to bargain with Cornwell to be sent back home and as happy as the admiral likely would be to get rid of her considering how much trouble her presence meant for Starfleet it was very clear that was not an option.

So she had stayed and over time at least gotten something to do again. The first months had been rough, stuck on Qo’nos, attempting to drown her sorrow in alcohol and meaningless sex until Leland had tried to recruit her for section 31 and give her some work again. There was only one reason why section 31 had been a tempting offer and that was the fact that literally anything would be better than spending the rest of her life as the owner of a cabaret on such a miserable planet. Besides, maybe if Michael heard that she was working with Starfleet she would reach out to her.

And then she didn’t … and Leland kept sending the disgraced emperor on meaningless missions, continuously testing her as if she couldn’t tell they were keeping her on a leash and once more she wished she could have simply put an end to all of this because she was tired of people leaving her behind.

As frustrating as the days were, the nights were much worse. She could ignore certain thoughts over the day, keep herself busy so she didn’t have time to over think her situation but at night there was nothing that kept her from being haunted by painful memories of the good things she had lost, of the things she missed now.

“ _Mother!”_

_It was a rare occasion for the emperor to genuinely smile. Not many had seen her happy like this but her young daughter often managed to cheer her up and as the girl ran over to her, nearly forgetting to greet her appropriately with a bow in her excitement, Georgiou couldn’t help but feel relieved. The last weeks had been hard work for her. Pushing the Klingons further into the outer corners of the universe away from the empire had been difficult but thanks to the support of her most trusted advisor they had been far more successful than last time. She would have to remember to reward him accordingly._

_She turned to her guards and gestured for them to leave her and her daughter alone. She barely had any free time with her busy schedule and she had to enjoy every second she got to spend with her daughter as much as she possibly could. “I hear you’ve been doing well with your studies lately. I’m proud.” Praise was not often given by her but her daughter deserved it. She turned towards the window facade on her right that gave her a view of the garden bellow. “Maybe next time Gabriel visits you could go with him. The Buran is a good ship. You could learn a lot under him.” There was no one else she would willingly trust with her daughter but Gabriel had proven his worth over and over again, he proved his devotion to her every time she had asked for it._

No ― Gabriel had betrayed her. He ―

_As she turned around to face her daughter again she could feel the girl grabbing her arm, far stronger than she possibly should have been at her young age. “You disappoint me, mother.”, she spoke, no longer sounding like the young girl she looked like. Her voice was filled with anger, disgust. “Gabriel says you’re tearing the empire apart … and he’s right. You’ve grown weak.” Georgiou tried to free herself, calling out for her guards to no avail. No one came to help her as her daughter painfully twisted her arm, forcing her to step back and fall her to her knees. “You failed me and the empire!”, her daughter yelled as Georgiou found herself unable to defend herself even as the girl took the knife of her belt and pointed it at her._

“ _You deserve this, mother.”_

She woke up that night to find that she had reached for the phaser under her pillow, trying to find what had woken her up and left her in such a terrified state until it slowly dawned on her that she had been dreaming. None of what she had seen had been real. Michael had never gotten the chance to attack her personally. Her daughter was _dead_ and she hated herself as she felt tears roll down her cheeks. There was no use in crying over this now, not when she had failed her daughter, not when she was long dead and nothing could be done about the situation now.

She tried to force herself back to sleep but ended up simply spending hours switching back and forth between browsing whatever entertainment the _NCIA-93_ offered, which wasn’t a lot but better than nothing and killing the bottle she had been hiding from Leland and the ship’s security personnel for days and emptying it until she eventually passed out at her desk, bottle still in hand all too soon awoken by yet another bad dream. It was useless and yet she refused to even think about calling Cornwell for something as ridiculous as this. She didn't need help. All she needed was to get something to do, something to make her forget about her daughter, about what Gabriel had done to her. **_She did not need help_**.

*****

When she reunited with Michael it only became more clear that even in this universe things were incredibly complicated between them. She had assumed Michael had known about her involvement with section 31 which had not been the case and over the next week things only got more complicated. Michael was asking her to prove she could be trusted, something that didn’t come easy for Georgiou. It didn’t help that at times she still saw her _daughter_ in the other woman, the daughter she had loved, the daughter who had betrayed her. She was convinced it would never get easier or hurt less and yet she couldn’t stay away either, no matter how bad it got.

It was only her luck that the woman who bore her daughter’s face decided to quietly approach her one day when she was feeling especially melancholic. As Michael attempted to make conversation Georgiou caught herself continuously drifting off into her thoughts despite trying to strictly ignore them. Standing here, looking out of the window to watch the stars, her daughter by her side … it almost felt like the _good old times_. It was a painful realisation for her to know that for it to be truly like the good old times there was someone missing here, someone who broken her heart, someone she tried to forget but couldn’t …

“ _You should be more harsh with them.”, Gabriel said, pointing the fork in his hand in her direction as he spoke. “They’re getting more confident the longer you allow this.” The emperor set her wine glass down on the golden table in front of her with a sigh, shaking her head at her advisor’s suggestion. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion on this, Gabriel.” Things had become more tense between them lately. He was always pushing for her to do more, to lash out and seize every bit of control and power she might be able to get her hands on but Gabriel had never been one for the bigger picture in politics. He was good at winning battles and waging war but terrible at the more ... mundane sides of leading an empire. He didn’t see what she saw, how could he? He was away all the time, demanding to be granted more missions every time he came back to her. He hated sitting still and his lack of patience would get him killed one day._

_He couldn’t see that they needed to keep a certain balance, that the empire’s economy and status relied on workers and slaves from the outside. To Gabriel they were just aliens taking up space and resources. He refused to understand their necessity. He didn’t care that it took a dozen prisoners to make his lifestyle affordable for him and the emperor was tired of hearing his complains about the matter. He had more freedom around her than any other person. He was very well aware of that and while she had valued him for years, relied on his advice and even found solace in his arms at times she was slowly losing her patience with him._

“ _What about Stamets? Has he made any progress with his work?.” She could see he was not done talking about the topic he had brought up yet but he was wise enough not to comment on that as she changed the topic. It would be foolish of him to try challenge her so directly. He might be her most trusted ally but that did not give him the freedom to undermine her authority even if he wished to do so. He was not freed from punishment for disobedience although he certainly knew she was never as harsh with him as she would have been with others._

_Gabriel seemed to think carefully about his response this time. Georgiou knew the way he avoided her gaze could only mean he had to be the bearer of bad news and that he had obviously hoped to find a better moment to reveal whatever information he possessed. “Not exactly. Stamets is still making excuses and saying there are more ‘unexpected complications’. He demands more funds.” His statement was met with silence for a moment, only disrupted by the sound of Georgiou’s glass clinking as she raised it to her lips, taking her time to process what Gabriel had just told her as he grew more tense while waiting for a response._

_Finally, she set the glass down again and leaned forward. “He knows he is already getting special treatment on the Charon, doesn’t he?” Gabriel nodded. “He is aware, yes.” He was smart enough to keep his answers short as he could feel the emperor’s anger grow. “Then tell me why he still has the audacity to ask for even more resources?” She needed Stamets’ work one way or another sadly that meant she needed Stamets as well. He was brilliant but also a pain to deal with. She and Gabriel both knew they needed his work to gain an edge over their enemies._

“ _I’ll make sure he stays quiet.” An expected reply, the only one she would accept right now and he knew that. It was his job to keep Stamets in line, his and captain Maddox’. Both men were responsible for executing her orders, making sure she wouldn’t have to bother with certain things and could concentrate on conquering more planets, the most important things. But besides the fact that Maddox viewed Lorca as competition, something that at times made the men work against each other rather than together as Georgiou hoped, they were also struggling to present her proper results lately._

 _At least_ _Gabriel was trying to make her_ _feel a little bit better_ _about_ _the lack of useful progress_ _whenever he could even_ _right_ _now as he reached out to put his hand on hers, at least putting some work into trying to reassure her he would make good on his promise. “_ _We’ll make this work. We always have,_ you _always have.” He knew how to appeal to her ego, to make her_ _p_ _ut her faith in him_ _over and over again_ _even when she was upset._ _She valued him for his work, for his ability to calm her when no one else could._ _“I know. I just want to make sure this goes as smoothly as possible. We don’t need another situation like Tarsus IV, now do we?”_ _What would she do without him?_

“Philippa? Are you listening to me?” Michael had been trying to get the woman’s attention to ask her how she was doing. As difficult as it was to separate her from her late mentor, she still cared for her and with how absent the other seemed to be at times she had to wonder what as on her mind whenever she drifted off like this. She could take a good guess, it was no secret that the woman was still mourning the loss of an empire, of a daughter, an entire life worth of relationships and accomplishments but Georgiou also had a habit to deflect, to act like nothing had happened and that she was always fully alert despite the truth obviously being different.

She tended to simply scold her daughter _who was not her daughter_ for even implying she could be hung up on something that was in the past and this time was no different. “Of course I am, I heard you.” She clearly had not but Michael knew it was pointless to try and argue now.  
  
Georgiou needed help, that much was clear. Whenever she talked about her past, about her daughter, about her former loyal advisor, whenever she talked about them at all … there was a certain melancholy in her eyes, a hint of bitterness and anger in her voice. She masked it well sometimes but Michael had slowly started to learn how to look past the woman’s façade and to her it was clear something needed to change. The problem was that nothing could change for good as long as Georgiou refused to even admit she had a problem in the first place and Michael couldn’t help her if the woman wouldn’t allow her to.

She could only hope Georgiou would allow her to reach out before it was too late, before her regrets and sorrow could consume her.

**Author's Note:**

> the Tarsus IV mention is in reference to prime Philippa and Gabriel being present for the event in the novel 'drastic measures'. I imagine mirror Georgiou and Lorca went there together too although obviously with a very different goal in mind.


End file.
